another axis
by Absol Master
Summary: Post-MapleStory, when specific time has ended. Heaven is just a little closer than we think - just in a direction we never actually thought to go. A rather cryptic oneshot.


Would be glad for a review. If the mathematical nature of this thing doesn't kill you first.

The narrator is actually a character in the story.

* * *

**_| another axis |_**

_y_axis:fragmented __dimension __silent weeping_

Down? Which way is "_down"_?

I taste no reprieve to this dark fantasy—however deep I scale, however many clocks I unburden. Yet the bittersweet story continues to be told, and the universe continues to listen.

And so I will. But where does it end?

Down? Which way is _"down"_?

_y_axis:undefined_

* * *

PAUSE

* * *

_x_axis:open eternity dying paradox_

The deepest shadow

of the leftward arrow

There he stands, a black bishop. The death master mourns on the left arm of the graph, weaving moonlight with the star songs and the laces of permanent death. He hasn't smiled for fourteen millennia; his tears have turned into tombstones.

But every day of his everlasting life, he asks himself the same question: _Given the chance, would you live your life again?_

His throne is the curled edge of a gothic fairytale; as words die his palace flourishes into a kingdom. Here he stands guard, imagining days he wishes had been, though he is the master of ending-time, and ruler of all pasts.

Never do these dreams of his cross his gates, never do they join the dead seconds in his cathedral graveyard.

For only realities, ever broken, pass through his gates to die

He never sees this moment pass, because it is a lie

_(He answers yes, he answers no. Yet again, can he decide on one?)_

His answer won't be heard. Not by anyone, yet by himself. He is alone, after all—alone subliming the stream at _x equals negative infinity_.

* * *

There are only two graveyards in this world—the graveyard of Time, and the graveyard of Eternity.

* * *

REWIND

* * *

_y_axis:{x≤0}, x _є_ R_

_We danced through the shadows between the stars—two angels lost in hell, wondering which way it was to heaven. The signposts lied, yet still we followed them. Was our master God or the Devil? Little did we know; less did we care. It wasn't necessary, after all, while your whispers rustled in my ear._

_We were two strangers, lost somewhere among the negatives of the vertical axis. We were trapped, of course, but at that moment when we stood within the all-encompassing darkness and you whispered three words in my ear, I knew that forevermore I would never give this life away._

This, _was my definition of life._

_We were tossed by the wind, thrown down the paths of time like cold orphans with nothing but a candle between us. The lines showed us only one way—a shadowy road down into a cathedral-abyss of cobwebs, tears lighting the strands like silver pearls._

_So we pulled our ragged cloaks tight_

_And together in the candlelight_

_We danced down a crumbling road, with only a gentle gold light to show us the way._

"_**I love you."**_

* * *

One day, we will make it to heaven. You would love it so, my dearest! One day, we will be running its garden pathways together, and our poems will no longer be unheard. And though we might never see each other there, we will certainly hear each other's songs.

Each other's songs, my love. And wouldn't that be enough?

* * *

PAUSE

* * *

_graph y equals -|1/x|_

Two graphs plunge into the hell that they always knew. Two ropes that hang into the dark land—two lifelines, two snakes—as the lost lovers flee into the arms of the shadows.

Two ropes, the graph of y equals negative (modulus [1 divided by x]) that merges only at the nonexistent point of x equals negative infinity, and never kisses itself again. They never do see it, never do care. So little do they know.

(How deep it plunges, but the bittersweet story continues to be told.)

* * *

_y_axis:loveless bleeding silenced heartbeat _

_It was our world to lose. We ran through one answer after another, and threw ropes off our necks. But they continued to follow, shadow, and as the dark demons swallowed us into their stomachs, we knew we would never survive forever._

_The flames taunted and swore, and we felt our feet burn away. It was the fire of something we knew so well, the fire from which we had fled, two millennia ago._

_It was the fire, the voice of a master who told us never to run. Never to run away._

_And as the thorns broke our bones_

_As the stars tossed their stones_

_I knew that we were dying. But we would never die—and so I knew the pain would last forever._

* * *

One day, my guardian. I promise, my guardian. We will make it to heaven, and then our tears will turn into flowers. We will make it past the graveyards, however bumpy the road may be—and though we might not see each other again, we will hear each other's songs.

* * *

_In caves we hid from cruel screams, held them away while the light still lived in us. Our candle was guttering, but it still burnt weakly—and by its light I found myself drowning in your eyes._

_"I promise we will make it to heaven. When we do, I promise we'll never have to fear again."_

_Outside, we heard the roars of time's volcanoes. We didn't know who to trust, but we knew we were going the wrong way. Was our master God or the Devil? Somewhere there, we had stopped caring. And here we were, released, lost, even colder than we had been at the start._

_But there was nothing left for us now. I whispered those three words again, and you touched each one like a falling snowdrop. We were wounded and broken, in the havens of the negatives far below, we no longer feared the pain that might come with the frost. So while I could, I sang my heart out—and you replied, again, with a steadiness I knew I would never forget._

_"**I love you."**_

* * *

_y_axis:f ragmen t eddimens ion sil entweepin g_

It is as easy to lie as it is to run a distant road. She could sing her glorious odes as fluently as she willed; he could listen till his heart longed no more.

And neither of them would realize that she was lying.

* * *

_find asymptote(s)_

_Why does no one ever hold a thread long enough to tie it? It falls away before the bond has become eternal, and rides the wind to be claimed by the stars and the tide._

Out in the shores of lost time, I can see seconds tossed away, seconds retrieved once more. I can see the white birds as they descend through everything and nothing, for though they think they have forgotten they have not, and what lies in their eyes now are the last hints of the treasures that he cried away.

At the edge of the ocean, he feels his tears freeze on his cheeks. Upon them he can see the ships that are ready to take on an eternal journey, for this ocean is wider than time and eternity.

Into the wind he sighs, and to the distance he calls. He wants her to hear, but which voice may carry itself over the sea of the vertical asymptote _x equals zero_?

Two graphs plunge into the hell that they always knew. Two ropes that hang into the dark land—two lifelines, two snakes.

Two ropes, the graph of _y equals negative (modulus [1 divided by x]) _that merges only at the nonexistent point of _x equals negative infinity_.

How little they knew. And how I wish they had.

* * *

There is a whole world outside of here. There, in a place where no one ever imagined it to be. A place in another dimension that we have yet to touch with our fingers—for our fingers it will not accept.

A world, that is nothing like this one.

Nothing like this one, trapped in black and silver and shadows that might be but are not.

Somewhere, there is heaven, along another axis—a Utopia, an Arcadia, an Avalon. But just like the doves on the edge of eternity, it is an impossible world—an infinity intangible, no more than the material of a wishful dream.

And the only way there is upon the wings of a power more endless than the soulless cosmos.

The only way there…is mine. Only I can open the gates—but the price is my life, my freedom.

No, I will never pay. Never, for it will hurt like the needles of the sky…

_

* * *

_

_y_axis:interim_

"_Don't worry," I whispered. "We won't run forever. We'll make it to heaven someday. I promise."_

_She reached out and touched my face, blinking gemstones from her deep eyes…_

_Lightning. The stones tore into a million particular fragments. The winds of the timeless flooded our hideaway, the fires that stank of acrid ash and dead things; the soot that made us blind. _"ΝΕςΕΡ ΡΥΝ ΑΩΑΨ. ΝΕςΕΡ ΡΥΝ ΑΩΑΨ."

_The voices of undeads, of robots, of the Master himself. They echoed in our little world, in a discordant melody that still rings in my bones. She thought I was going to let go—no, I won't let go, I tried to tell her—but she felt the shards of darkness rip through her hair and let go herself._

_No, I wanted to scream. No, as she was snatched away and flew over the rocks, over the skies, into the rivers that ran wayward._

_Claws. Claws, and the shear of needles that had sewn the skies apart._

_They were fire and ice, and all things that don't live anymore. They were machines made to seek us out—these shadows of the past had never lost sight of us, though we had run so far. Their claws scraped my arms, and I cried blood._

And the candle finally went out.

* * *

_y_axis:**i**_

They are tangled, tangled in fanged vipers of an old graph. They are poisoned as the strings drag them through the shards, back to their old prisons—but now on the two disconnected sides of the x-axis. This is an unreality, even for one who has been to the edges of Time—even for one as merciless as the grey waters.

I do not understand…why does my heart hurt?

But the bittersweet story continues to be told, and the world continues to listen.

_X equals infinity; x equals negative infinity._ He doesn't need to hear; he feels it in the winds of the orca's ocean, as they sweep by the frozen albatrosses whirling.

That is where they wait, wait for the gates to fall. And he knows not, how many more dirges he will cry.

* * *

_x_axis: -__∞,∞_

_I never believed, once, that we would end this way. I thought we would go to heaven, my love—but we were only divided forever. _

_Broke my promise, into shards that tore me apart._

_I still remember how the journey began. I still remember the solitary melodies, and the silver threads that bound the world to the heavens._

two strangers, lost somewhere among the negatives of the y-axis. trapped, but at that moment when you whispered those three special words in my ear, i knew that forevermore i would never give this life away.

_I have begun to doubt…my love. My LOVE!_

_**I hate this world! This time! This life! I want to start my life again!**_

the lines showed us only one way: into the abyss.

_Did we not know, right from the start, that we were only wandering towards the graveyard?_

* * *

How it hurts, it hurts more at every everlasting second. I have never known pain—yet now I hurt like the knife of the sky has plunged through my heart.

In the fever dreams of a lost love he founders, groping in blindness for a road that doesn't exist. In tears he screams her name, burning his feet in the asymptotic ocean, burning them again. For he does not know that love will never take him across.

He is home, home where it is warm and it is safe. But home, where he will never be complete.

The story has lost its sweetness. It is downright _bitter, bitter, bitter._

My eyes are oceans. Merciless, merciless me.

And suddenly I realize…that I hold the answer.

The last say

Their only way

But shall I break the law of the world I know? Shall I destroy myself for another? Am I not merciless and cruel, heartless and objective?

* * *

_x_axis: 0_

_The gales are rising. Oh, my love—why are there hurricanes here?_

_I don't understand…I don't understand…_

* * *

_y_axis:arbitrary_

In tears, I bid them farewell. Over the horizon, the winds are soaring too, the albatrosses and terns crying into a lost sea. Momentarily I praise the world for what it accorded me the power to do—and suddenly I feel my heart fail:

From fear, fear at the _**punishment**_.

_Where will I go? Where will everyone go, after this?_

But I read the fairytale again, _every-letter-and-the-spaces-between_, the tears slipping through my fingers, rivers and waterfalls.

All at once, I fear no longer.

At the Origin, a new axis rises. Beautiful.

_Goodbye, Thanatos. Goodbye, Gatekeeper. Glad to be of assistance._

* * *

The claws have turned from them, to me. I calmly accept that there is no escape, no escape. Their death cold grips are painful—but nowhere near as painful as that which _his _story carved into my heart.

_It was all worth it, _I tell myself, as my soul is mutilated by the robots of the Master. _I bought it for you, children. Live it well._

It's where I knew it would end. It's how I knew they would bury me. I can see a shriveled doll upon the tiles of the graph Origin, whispering to me with empty eyes—

But for a promise kept

this fate, too, I accept.

_Solitary life in prison for one. Better than solitary life in prison for two._

My heart is in shreds_…ah_. My sky is a string of endless digits, and my hands are the hands of a corpse. Where am I? Somewhere in a body that isn't mine. Somewhere where I will be a dismembered submerged no-one, forever.

_But is "forever" such a long time?_

* * *

_x_axis:0_

_y_axis:_

_z_axis:49_

Somewhere along the z-axis, never straying far from x and y, they dance in circles, lighting white candles everywhere.

Through endless fields they frolic, buoyed up upon the tides of time and the joy of a new direction they never understood—lost yet never really disconnected.

They never do see each other again. But each leaves imprints and tracks for the other to find, wherever he/she goes—things upon which the other may find hope, and be certain, and glad, that the other is somewhere close by.

But to be close, close enough to _almost _touch her—is that not enough?

_Almost, _the word that holds a million questions. _Almost, _he keeps whispering to himself, as if it were heavenly sweet upon his tongue. He reaches out to touch the clouds, and his smile carries the burden of a history he will never forget, a promise he will never break—never keep.

_Almost._

And again, he asks himself:

Given the chance, would you live your life again?

The demons and claws and silver flash through his mind, but the brilliance of love fleeting, love everlasting, chases it all away. And he knows, forevermore, that this will be his answer.

_"No, I would not. For she is here."_

* * *

Somewhere far away, a black kingdom crumbles. Two vipers turn into grapevines. An albatross gets lost in a world it has always known.

**FIN**

* * *

Such a disappointing ending. I'd be glad to hear your interpretation.


End file.
